I am with you (and with the "rednecks") on the question of rape, E.
But I would dispute the notion that rapists are necessarily twisted creatures who are angry, specifically, at women.
Many rape men, for example, especially in prisons, where rape is a means of establishing, or confirming, the pecking order.
And others humiliate other men by raping their women.
To take the most obvious example: it used to be standard -- and accepted -- procedure for conquering armies to loot the towns they occupied, and to rape all the women.
The soldiers were not necessarily "angry" at the women they raped (and then perhaps enslaved or killed). But they had been deprived of the "goodies" of life for some time, and now they were told they had the right -- "To the victor belong the spoils" -- to take those goodies without asking for permission. On top of that, by raping the women of the men they had conquered in battle, they were also showing their contempt for the men in yet one more way. ("Your women are now ours.")
And despite the Geneva Conventions, rape has been practiced in many modern conflicts, especially in ethnic ones, again as a way of expressing contempt for the enemy as a whole.
I doubt that the majority of the men who committed such acts in Bosnia, for example, had been violent rapists before the war. They probably looked, and acted, like "normal" law-abiding citizens. That is what is so spooky.
In short, sex and violence often DO go together, and this should not come as a surprise to anyone.
Joan |
